Paper board products, such as posterboard, present unique issues that must be taken into consideration for retail display. As a threshold matter, posterboard has a very large surface area and is very thin, thus making it highly susceptible to permanent damage resulting from bending. Moreover, the flimsy nature of posterboard presents an additional problem with respect to handling. Finally, despite the lightweight nature of a single piece of posterboard, a stack of posterboard is quite heavy.
White posterboard is by far the most often used and, thus, the most purchased color of posterboard. Thus, white posterboard must be kept in stock in much greater quantities than all other colors. Nonetheless, retailers desire to carry and display every color of posterboard available in their inventory.
All of these considerations must be balanced against the fact that the maximization of shelf space in retailer stores is a fundamental consideration in whether to carry an item. Thus, many retailers do not like to carry posterboard in a wide variety of colors (or at all) due to the fact that a posterboard display takes up a large amount of shelf space.
Existing racks for displaying posterboards are stand-alone structures that have a set number of angled shelves. While the angled nature of the shelves reduces the depth of existing posterboard racks, they are limited in that the width and height of the posterboard racks are fixed dimensions. To this end, typical posterboard racks often do not fit on most aisle shelving systems and, thus, are limited to being positioned at “end-of-the-aisle” locations within retail stores. “End-of-the aisle” is the most desirous location for product placement within stores and, thus, is typically saved for high volume and/or high profit-margin items. Therefore, many stores choose to not carry (or carry limited amounts) of posterboard.
Moreover, even in those stores that have made room for posterboard displays, the closely stacked and angled nature of the shelves of existing posterboard racks make it very difficult for people to insert posterboard into the shelves, either during initial inventory placement or customer replacement. This problem is further exacerbated by the wire frame nature of the existing posterboard racks as the posterboard tends to get snagged on the wires during loading/unloading procedures. All of these issues result in damaged inventory, which is undesirable for obvious reasons.
Another issue with existing racks is that they have a static depth and, thus, can not be positioned atop decks having different depths.
In view of the above, a need exists for an improved rack system for supporting and displaying flat articles, such as paper board products, including posterboard.